DIRECTIONS: BRANDING; The Anti-Theme

Published: March 27, 2005

PBS distances itself from Buster the rabbit. ABC bars a satirical song about a sponge from the Oscars. What then to make of the Independent Film Channel's new branding maneuver: a yearlong campaign in which the cable channel adopts the expletive-laden, nine-minute Green Day song ''Jesus of Suburbia'' -- with lyrics like ''Get my television fix/Sitting on my crucifix'' -- as its signature theme? Joel Topcik asked IFC's general manager and executive vice president, Evan Shapiro, about the choice.

How did this come about?
Because film is at the heart of everything we do, we want IFC to become a film itself. And every great film needs a great soundtrack. I was riding home from Pennsylvania after working the polls for People for the American Way, listening to Green Day's ''American Idiot,'' and I thought, ''What if we took 'Jesus of Suburbia' and made it our soundtrack?''

Why ''Jesus of Suburbia''?
This album -- and specifically this song -- is the story of our audience and our personality. It speaks to the disaffected mentality that our network, our auteurs, our audience taps into. We're all part of this disenfranchised body of people who are looking for a voice.

How will you use the song?
We're using the four-chord riff that's at the heart of the song as our audio bug. NBC has those three tones -- bong bong bong -- we have four hard-licking guitar riffs that scream out who we are: whaa whaa whaa whaa! We've just debuted a three-minute montage of all the films we currently show with the music in it, and soon we will have a nine-minute film using the entire song.

Who are you trying to reach with a song that says ''alcohol and cigarettes and Mary Jane/To keep me insane and doing someone else's cocaine''?
This is a rallying cry: get out there and say something, say it loud. Don't sit there on the couch and let it all wash over you. Don't let anyone take away your freedom of expression. You can take our freedoms away from us, but you're going to have to do it from our cold, dead hands.